3G

Apple has yanked the majority of its 3G-enabled devices from its German online store, including the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2 WiFi + 3G, after Motorola Mobility secured a sales injunction over 3G/UMTS patents. The move, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports, is a response to a court win back in December 2011, rather than Motorola's permanent injunction success earlier today over a different patent, with the company apparently posting a €100m ($131m) bond to enact the late-2011 ruling.

$99 for an Android tablet with 3G? The ZTE Optik demands a few compromises - and a two-year agreement - but the price is right: for your money you get 3G, a 7-inch 1280 x 800 multitouch display, Android 3.2 Honeycomb and full access to the Android Market. Inside is a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, paired with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.

Qualcomm and Ericsson have completed the first VoLTE handover of a voice call from an LTE network to a WCDMA one, paving the way for high-speed smartphones that can handle voice as well as data. The proof-of-concept took place in late December, using a Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 3G/LTE based device on an Ericsson network, seamlessly transitioning the in-progress call to 3G when LTE coverage was no longer available.

UK carrier Three has answered the (perhaps unasked) question of what you call a mobile hotspot when it's not actually mobile: the Three Web Cube, packing a 3G HSPA+ connection into a fixed WiFi router. Promising plug-and-play simplicity, the box comes with a SIM pre-installed and a choice of tariffs with up to 15GB of data per month.

Samsung's short run of legal success against Apple has been quickly curtailed, with the past two weeks punctuated by court rejections and news that the European Commission has singled out the firm for potentially misusing patents. The Korean company's prospects had been buoyed by a Dutch court finding against Apple in an attempt to have the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned from sale, with vital design patents dismissed as less powerful than Apple had previously assumed. However, while Samsung had been arguing matters of style, Apple and the EU had focused on cellular-substance, dragging Samsung up short for its potentially dubious use of 3G technology IP.

Samsung is the subject of a new antitrust investigation, with the European Commission confirming that it is formally looking into whether the Korean company misused essential 3G/UMTS patents it holds. Tipped back in November, the investigation will look for evidence that Samsung has refused to license its wireless telecoms patents - deemed "essential" to European standards - under "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) terms. Samsung has cited the patents in recent lawsuits against Apple, among other rivals.

The first of Samsung's seven patent infringement claims against Apple in Germany has been rejected by the courts, though it's unclear at present what impact the decision could have on the Korean company's remaining cases. Centered around 3G/UMTS wireless standards patents Samsung holds, the case alleges Apple has released products such as the iPhone without licensing the tech appropriately. At this stage, though, we don't know if the Mannheim Regional Court decided Apple escaped on a technical reason, FOSS Patents reports, or if it decided that the Cupertino company did indeed have a license.

RIM has two more BlackBerry PlayBook tablets in the pipeline for 2012, according to a roadmap leak, including a 10-inch LTE-enabled model targeting late holiday sales. Despite the poor reception of the first-gen PlayBook - recently slashed to just $299 apiece - product information leaked to N4BB indicates a new 7-inch "3G+" PlayBook is expected in April, with a 10-inch LTE-equipped PlayBook due in December. There's also word on when we might expect to see the first BlackBerry 10 smartphones; more after the cut.

ASUS still has no plans for a 3G-enabled Transformer Prime the company has insisted, despite roadmap information from earlier this month to the contrary. "No such product exists on [the] current roadmap" an ASUS statement to Focus Taiwan claims, though 3G versions of other "high-end products in the Transformer family" are likely in the future.

ASUS has confirmed that there will a 3G-equipped version of the Eee Pad Transformer Prime in March, with the company also saying it plans to launch an ARM-based Windows 8 slate by the end of the year. The much-anticipated tablets were confirmed in a pre-CES briefing attended by NetbookNews, though there's still room for some surprises next week: ASUS says it has two new models for the show, along with a further two tablets pencilled in for the latter half of 2012.